THE MAKE OR BUY DECISION:

1. THE MAKE OR BUY DECISION: Mountain Goat cycles, the company is now producing the heavy duty gear shifters used in most popular line of mountain bikes. The company’s Accounting Department reports the following cost of pro ducing 8,000 units of the shifter internally each year.

2. -- An outside supplier has offered to sell8,000 shifters a year to the company at a price of $19 each. Should the company stop producing the shifters internally and buy from outside supplier? As always the focus of Management decision should be on the RELEVANT COST-those that differs from the alternatives. And the costs that differ between the alternatives consist of the costs that can be AVOIDED by purchasing the shifters from outside supplier. If the costs that can be avoided by purchasing the shifters from outside supplier total less than $19, then the company should continue its own shifters and reject the outside supplier’s offer. On the other hand, if the costs that can be avoided by purchasing the shifters from outside supplier total more than $19, the outside supplier’s offer should be accepted

3. - Note that depreciation of special equipment is listed as one of the costs of producing the shifters internally. Because the equipment has already been purchased, this depreciation is a SUNK COST and is therefore IRRELEVANT. If the equipment could be sold, its SALVAGE VALUE would be RELEVANT. Or if the machine could be used to make other products, this could be relevant as well. Also note that the company is allocating a portion of its general overhead costs to the shifters. Any portion of this general overhead cost that would actually be eliminated if the gear shifters were purchased rather than made would be relevant in the analysis. However, it is likely that the general overhead costs allocated to the gear shifters are in fact common to all items produced in the factory and would continue unchanged even if the shifters were purchased from outside supplier. Such allocated costs are not relevant costs (because they do not differ between make or buy alternatives) and should be eliminated from the analysis along with the sunk cost. The variable cost producing the shifters can be avoided by buying the shifters from the outside supplier so they are relevant cost. We will assume in this case model analysis the variable costs include direct materials, direct labor and variable overhead. The supervisor’s salary is also relevant if it could be avoided by buying the shifters.

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5. - Exhibit 2 contains the relevant costs analysis of the MAKE OR BUY decision assuming that the supervisor’s salary can indeed be avoided. Because it costs $40,000 less to make the shifters internally than to buy them from the outside supplier, Mountain goat Cycles should reject the outside supplier’s offer. However the company may wish to consider one additional factor before coming to a final decision-the opportunity cost of the space now being used to produce the shifter. OPPORTUNITY COST- If the space now being used to produce the shifters would be otherwise idle, then the company should continue to produce its own shifters and the supplier’s offer should be rejected. But if the space now being used to produce shifters could be used for some other purpose? In that case the space would have an OPPORTUNITY COST equal to segment margin that could be derived from the best alternative use of the space.

6. - To illustrate, assume that the space now being used to produce shifters could be used to produce a new cross-country bike that would generate a SEGMENT MARGIN OF $60,000 per year. Under this condition the company should accept the supplier’s offer and use the available space to produce the new product line: The OPPORUNITY COST for Mountain Goat Cycles is sufficiently large in this case to change the decision.